Supernatural Central Short and Quick Interview:
(Barb Lien-Cooper is co-author of (among other things) the prose novel THE TALKING CURE: A NOVEL OF MAGIC AND PSYCHIATRY, available starting August 31st, 2022)
1.Tell me a little bit about your main character of this book (The Talking Cure).
There are two main characters—in order of appearance, they are: psychiatrist Dr. Cynthia Mann, and Zach Cutter. Zach assures her that he is not just an antiques dealer, but that that’s just a cover for him being a supernatural investigator. He wants sleeping pills to help him with some nightmares he’s been having, and when she won’t give him those in a hurry, he admits well, all right, I do have another problem I could start seeing you for: I have at least a year’s worth of missing memories—probably a lot more than a year’s worth, he thinks. She’s much more interested in treating him for saying he can do real magic... until she asks him to prove it...
2.Do you believe in the paranormal and if so, do you have an experience you can share?
I am an open-minded skeptic about the paranormal.I want to believe, but I also know that a lot of con artists are out there.For instance, how many fake Moth Man sightings have been put on You Tube?
I’ve had a lot of “paranormal activity” happen to me, although, being a writer with an imagination, I do tend to see the world as a place where anything can happen, so that might color my perceptions a little.
I’ll tell you a nasty story, and a more light-hearted one.
The scary story:My husband and I were walking on a high suspension style bridge in a park once.I heard a nasty voice in my head say, “Jump.”I said, “No, go away.”The voice said, “If you don’t get off this bridge right now, we’ll throw you off.”Well, I got off that bridge!I was shaking, and my mood went straight to hell.
Now, some husbands would either laugh at me or say I needed psychological help.My husband knows that I’m not crazy and that I don’t hear voices in my head.So, he looked up the bridge online.Apparently, a black man was either lynched or shot on that bridge.Yikes, the poor guy.
Then I mentioned my experience on social media, and an old friend of mine, who was a Presbyterian as well as a very practical person in general, replied, “I saw ghosts as a child.”Somehow, that spooked me more than the bridge incident.He didn’t seem to be the paranormal sort, but he said it so matter-of-factly...
Later, my husband and my mother-in-law walked on that bridge and nothing bad happened.Good for them, but I’m never going on that bridge again.
The light-hearted story:One day, I was talking to a self-proclaimed psychic who said, “Actually, you’re very spiritually gifted.You will notice your life will change soon.This will be a sign to you.Objects in your kitchen will disappear and reappear at random.Don’t be afraid.This is just a sign that the fairies are near.”
I said to myself, “Uh, okay...?”
The day after, objects started disappearing and reappearing in my fridge.At first, I thought it was just me being scatter-brained, but it’s happened so often over the years that I can’t help but wonder...
3.What titles are you working on now that you can tell us about?
After The Talking Cure is out for a while, I’m going to be putting out a book that’s very close to my heart called Song to the Siren.I’d been reading ambiguously supernatural tales like Turn of the Screw, “The Beckoning Fair One,” and The Haunting of Hill House, and these inspired me to write my own ambiguous supernatural tale.Song to the Sirenis a novel about a cult figure rock star who died young.Either Reed Sinclair’s mental health issues led him on a self-destructive path, orsomething supernatural hounded him to his grave.It’s up to the audience to figure out which interpretation of Reed Sinclair’s life and death seems more reasonable.
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Book Trailer https://youtu.be/Ya9_0eCMrzw
Excerpt
“You’re really going to make me do magic, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I can’t believe your story otherwise.”
He reached out to some fresh roses that were in a vase on my desk. “Watch,” he said.
No magical energy came from his fingers, and nothing felt or looked any different. He was just... touching them. But he looked at me as if he’d done something. “...You didn’t do anything,” I said.
“Touch the petals.”
As I reluctantly reached out to the petals he’d been touching, his fingers, drawing away, touched my hand. “C’mon, they won’t bite you,” he said. Then he reached out again, and guided my hand across the petals of the flower.
The roses had been real that morning—I’d put them in fresh water.
But now they were fake flowers, made of silk. “You have nice hands,” he said.
I took back my hand. “What did you do to my flowers?”
“Magic,” he said.
“Slight-of-hand magic, you mean. You could have just distracted me...”
Zach sighed and raised his hand, showing me his palm, the fingers splayed out like he was about to start pointing to it and lecturing me about palm-reading. Then he lowered it down until his hand was laid out flat on my desk. I watched his hand lower, then I watched it sit there, waiting for something to happen. His hand didn’t move... nothing seemed to move... though there was some slight change I couldn’t put my finger on.
After a few seconds, I looked more closely around his hand at the desktop. The top of the desk was transparent.
My desk had been made of wood. Now, however, the entire desk was made of glass.
It was still exactly the same shape. It was at least the same weight, since it didn’t budge when I pushed at it.
I pulled out a drawer. A glass drawer slid out, on metal wheels turning on metal rails screwed into the glass by metal screws. I hadn’t really needed to pull out the drawer—I could already see, somewhat, what was inside: regular-old, boring white envelopes, some staples, paperclips, pens.
All faintly visible through see-through glass, glass with a woody brown tint to it... and a sort of vague wood grain set into it somehow...
“Don’t worry, it’ll only last a few hours, then it’ll change back to wood,” Cutter assured me.
What. In the world.
I stared at him for almost half a minute. He looked at me patiently. It was as if we were trying to “read” each other, trying to figure out... I don’t know. Each other, I guess.
I looked away first. “I’m sorry, Zach, but you’re not a client of mine yet... I can’t... until I get to know you... I don’t just give out sleeping pills... I’m sure other doctors might, but...”
“I don’t want another doctor. I want you, Cynthia.”
Great. The first handsome, smart guy I’d met in a while, and not only did he have to be a potential client, he was some sort of... magician...? “I’m not sure that would be...” I said, “I mean...” On top of everything else, I found that I was blushing.
“What if I told you that...well, uh... I actually... it’s not just sleeping pills... seriously, I do have some real problems...”
“What sort of problems...?”
“...Repressed memories.”
“Oh? When did that start?”
He smiled weakly. “After Celeste died. The time right before that is very fuzzy. And the time right after that is pretty much lost to me. I lost months... probably a lot more time than that.” He glanced at a clock on the wall and grinned a winning smile. “But I imagine my time’s up for today...”
“Yes, I suppose it is...”
“Unless you’d like to go out to dinner with me...?”
“Mr. Cutter, if you’re to be my client, I can’t... we can’t meet socially...”
“I’ve always liked women who have a bit of an authoritarian side to them...”
I took out my appointment book. “Let’s get you an appointment for next time. I don’t really appreciate walk-ins, and...”
“—Argh, I hate sticking to appointments. Being a magician isn’t exactly a 9-to-5 job...”
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